Special teams coordinator LeVar Woods to leave Iowa football for Michigan State

IOWA CITY — Special teams coordinator LeVar Woods knows Kinnick Stadium and the Hawkeye football tradition as well as anyone. He’s helped develop multiple Hawkeyes to reach the NFL, and has spent almost 50 years around Iowa City.

Woods watched his kicker, Drew Stevens, kick a game-winning field goal against Michigan State to close out the 2025 home schedule. It’s now known as Woods’ final game as the Hawkeye special teams coordinator.

Iowa football head coach Kirk Ferentz announced Woods has accepted a job at Michigan State on Thursday afternoon.

“The University of Iowa gave me more than football,” Woods said Thursday. “It gave me my life.”

Woods will join the Spartans as an assistant head coach and special teams coordinator. Ferentz confirmed that Woods will coach the Hawkeyes in the ReliaQuest Bowl on New Year’s Eve against No. 14 Vanderbilt before departing for East Lansing.

“LeVar, a big part of his life has been here. He's done a fantastic job,” Ferentz said. “We mutually agreed this is what's best for the team, and certainly I think what's best for everybody involved. I know he'll do a great job in the next couple weeks through the bowl game.”

The Hawkeyes’ special teams unit this season saw Stevens break the program record for made field goals and returner Kaden Wetjen break the program record for punt-return touchdowns.

Woods has the team’s special teams coordinator since 2017, after coaching tight ends for three seasons (2015-17) and linebackers for three seasons (2012-14). He first joined the staff in 2008 as an administrative assistant.

  Buy Photo

Woods has helped develop Iowa’s special teams unit to produce highly regarded returners, including recently named consensus All-American and Jet Award finalist Wetjen. Woods has also coached punter Tory Taylor and defensive back/return specialist Cooper DeJean to unanimous All-American status.

“I thought LeVar would be perfect at (special teams coordinator) and he's been better than that," Ferentz said. "... I'm really appreciative of what he's taken that role, what he did with it in growing it, and he did just an absolutely fantastic job."

Woods has spent nearly his entire football career — as a player and as a coach — in Iowa. After playing for Ferentz in his first few seasons as head coach, he was a seven-year NFL veteran, playing from 2001-07 in 88 games. Woods was a three-year letterman at Iowa as an outside linebacker, and was named captain in his final season.

The former Hawkeye played from 1998 to 2000 as a two-year starter at outside linebacker. He was a team captain in his final season. Woods is an Iowa native, playing high school football at West Lyon High School in Inwood. In his announcement, Woods paid tribute to Ferentz, former head coach Hayden Fry and Norm Parker as people who had key impacts on his time in Iowa.

“There are definitely places that shape you and there are places that make you and for me,” Woods said in an emotional statement, “Iowa was both."

Woods’ son, Mason, is a freshman tight end at Iowa this year, and Woods said Mason will likely remain with the Hawkeyes.

“This is his place. He chose this place,” Woods said of his son. “I'm not going to put my son in this position, where it felt like it was a bad spot or anything like that.”

Woods added that he hasn’t had many prior interactions with newly announced Michigan State head coach Pat Fitzgerald. The new Spartans’ leader was hired earlier this month.

Ferentz said while filling the new special teams coordinator role will be a key piece to this upcoming offseason, he doesn’t anticipate anything happening through the ReliaQuest Bowl. However, he did add that he won’t wait too long before making any decisions.

The biggest challenge? Finding someone who can continue what Woods has built over the last seven years.

“The trick will be to find the next LeVar Woods,” Ferentz said. “We'll have good candidates, and it's really not pressing right now. We'll have eight-plus months to get it right. I don't plan on waiting till August to fill it, but we'll figure that out when we get in the new year.”

Though emotional throughout the announcement, Woods shared his immense gratitude for what the program meant to him — and left the parting words that his love for the school won’t waiver.

“I’ll always be a Hawkeye,” Woods said, tears still in his eyes. “Go Hawks.”

Comments: madison.hricik@thegazette.com, sign up for my weekly newsletter, Hawk Off the Press, at thegazette.com/hawks.